Richard Lord
Bio
Richard is an independent Actionscript developer and consultant. He works for a diverse range of clients, either leading the client's development team through a project or working as a sole developer.
He spreads the word on the joys of Actionscript by training and mentoring developers in programming and speaking at user groups and conferences about various Actionscript related topics. His most requested talks are on the use of Actionscript in game development, particularly in relation to physics and AI.
While most of his current time is spent programming Actionscript, over the last 16 years Richard has used a mulitude of different programming languages (12 at the last count). His work includes games for PCs, Playstation2, XBox and the web and installations at various museums and galleries.
Richard is the developer of Flint - the open source Actionscript 3 particle system (flintparticles.org)
He is not as geeky as this bio makes him sound - Richard has been described as a ""renaissance man"" because of his work with mathematics and contemporary dance. He is taking this as a compliment.
Session
Creating Particle Effects With Flint
Flint creates particle effects in 2D and 3D.
Flint simulates gravity, drag, explosions, flocking, collisions and a whole lot more, and it handles thousands of particles in real-time.
Flint is open-source, is written in Actionscript 3, and while it integrates with Papervision3D and Away3D, it doesn't require either of them.
This presentation will look at what Flint can do, how to use it, and how to customise it. Richard will describe the underlying architecture for Flint, the choices made and why, and will walk through some of the core code.
He will show you how to create a number of common particle effects including smoke, fire, explosions and flocking, how to extend Flint to create custom effects, and how to integrate those effects into a project in Flash or Flex.